Ideology on the bench
I found NJJN’s editorial “The next justice” (July 5) to be a curious attempt by a perhaps biased liberal editor to strike some balance in the selection process of a new justice.
My first criticism is that in offering an opinion of what attributes the new justice should possess, your editorial misses the single most important one: Should the new justice be guided by the Constitution or fashion opinions based on his or her ideology? The latter is the distinguishing characteristic of liberal judges. Also in criticizing Pres. Donald Trump’s other executive appointments, you make no mention of the most relevant one, Neil Gorsuch.
Then there is your blanket assertion that the GOP leadership was “dead wrong” in not considering Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia on the court. This is a debatable assertion given how soon the presidential election was to take place and how profoundly his appointment would have affected the Supreme Court’s ideological balance.
Former Gov. Chris Christie won the 2009 election with a campaign promise to alter the leftist bias of the New Jersey Supreme Court. He began his rebalancing effort in the first year of his eight-year tenure and accomplished practically nothing because of legislative intransigence.
Who was “dead wrong” then?
Princeton
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